Illustration of a California voter casting a ballot. (Photo: Vepar5, via Shutterstock)Before Election Day, fewer than one in every five California voters have cast their ballots. About 11.8 primary election million ballots were mailed during the past month — 5.3 million to Democrats and about 3.1 million to Republicans, according to figures compiled by Political Data, a firm that markets campaign information.
Attendees at a 2016 political rally in Santa Monica. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)The 2018 primary election is right around the corner. And with stories of higher turnout and a Democratic wave in states like Virginia and Alabama, many political consultants and observers are expecting to see some higher turnout in California this June, with a potentially strong Democratic and Latino surge.
The attitudes of voters. Illustration by Niroworld, via Shutterstock.Friday night, my wife Jodi got home after a long week. Trying to decide what we should do, she flipped through some channels, looking at the networks, a couple sports channels, a few news channels, HBO and Showtime, and then finally announced “I don’t think there’s anything good on TV, let’s go see a movie.”
Illustration by Judd Hertzler/Capitol Weekly.ANALYSIS: Most politicos are fans of the movie The Candidate, a 1972 political drama where a U.S. Senate candidate, Bill McKay, seeks an underdog win in his first campaign. The energy and excitement builds up for months leading to a pivotal sunny Tuesday in California when everyone heads to the polls. The movie is filled with young excited volunteers rushing out to put up door hangers, check polling locations to see who’s voted, and make phone calls to those who haven’t – all parts of the traditional get out the vote efforts known in the business as G.O.T.V. But if this campaign were a modern campaign it would also be a losing campaign.